The Writing on the Wall
by SadCreeper
Summary: May finds Coulson writing on the wall at the end of the finale. Won't make sense if you haven't seen the last few episodes. Kind of May/Coulson but their relationship in this is the same as I interpret it in the show...undefined and confusing. This will probably have three chapters eventually. Enjoy. Rated T for a few curse words.
1. Chapter 1

After years of service Melinda May had discovered that when you live in close-quarters, over time, people tend to divide labor naturally based on the quirks, kinks and talents of the individual group members. The band of misfits to which she was currently assigned was no exception. Simmons cleans the restrooms because a dirty sink disgusts her "more than anything in the world". Skye takes out the trash, mostly because Coulson orders her too. Fitz is a picky eater so he stocks the fridge out of a deathly fear of what the others might try and force him to eat. May maintains the weapons locker (among other things). Every morning she unlocks the gun-vault and accounts for every weapon. Every evening she does the same in reverse only this evening had been different.

After a crappy night of sleep Melinda woke early to work-out before heading to the new mystery coordinates Phil received from now former Director Fury. They landed only to find that "Koenig 2" (as Skye had deemed him) wanted everyone to submit to yet another series of intense background checks before granting the team full access to the base. After a spirited exchange between the two Agents, in which Melinda told Koenig exactly where he could shove his "Lanyard", she found herself promising Coulson she wouldn't kill or maim the portly Agent and inevitably she submitted to the second round of tests.

It had been a long week and an even longer year. She could barely remember the last time she'd had a solid night's sleep and after hours of filling out documents and answering personal questions, Melinda was ready for bed. Unfortunately, in her haste to reacquaint herself with a proper mattress, she'd forgotten to lock the vault door and the lapse in judgment didn't occur to her until 2:00 AM when she was wrested from her slumber by a ridiculous dream (nightmare?) involving Ward in a clown suit, Swedish Fish and an open vault door… _Dammit the vault door is open_ she remembered angrily. _Look out Freud_ she mused as she recalled the details of the dream. For the last five minutes she'd been laying silently in bed, scrutinizing the ceiling and trying to convince herself that locking the gun vault was unnecessary and returning to sleep was a much better idea.

_You can let it go for one night_. _You're being ridiculous. Just go to sleep_ she scolded herself internally

_The only living people for hundreds of miles already have access to the combination so go to sleep dammit just ignore it. _she blinked but her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling.

_We are at a secret base with a defense plan that includes heavy machine guns and reinforced steel….your high-school combination lock doesn't matter, at this point. You can do this Melinda, just ignore it and go to sleep._ _Go to sleep. GO TO SLEEP_!

May wanted to prove to herself that she could suppress the anal-retentive side of her personality, but quickly accepted that if she didn't just lock the vault she'd spend the rest of the night staring at the ceiling and thinking about it. She sat up with a sigh, turned on the light, threw on some shoes and headed towards the Bus.

Moments later May found herself in front of the hanger bay door. She pulled out her newly minted key-card and smirked as she recalled how much it had annoyed Koenig when she removed it from the lanyard.

_"Wait" he exclaimed "What are you doing? Your ID and access card should be worn on the lanyard, around the neck and displayed at all times while on base" Koenig insisted as he watched her pull the card off the lanyard and place it inside her pocket_

_"No" she replied simply. _

May was about to slip the card into the card reader on the hanger bay door when she hears what sounds like scratching coming from the storage room behind her. Her eyebrows contort in confusion and she abandons her current mission to investigate the noise. It doesn't take long for her to locate the source of the noise and when she sees the source, the force of the accompanying shock stops her dead in her tracks.

Coulson is dwarfed by his own apparent creation. Etchings fill the wall in front of him. May stands, mouth agape, and eyes wide as Phil tattoos the wall without any apparent regard for her presence. May moves forward reticently and instantly recognizes the etchings as the same symbols Garett had carved into the glass doors on the Bus only days prior. _God was it just a few days ago_ she thought _seems like years_. This realization that the drawings are virtually the same terrifies her.

"Phil" she calls softly and walks closer.

"Phil!" her voice is louder as he continues to ignore her.

"Phil!" she yells this time but stops short of touching him. She is standing inches away from him now, staring at the right side of his expressionless face and watching as he carves unconsciously. She watches for a moment before she reaches up and clasps her hand around his, careful to keep the knife pointed towards the wall. She was ready for anything, but as she pulls downward on his hand she is surprised to find that he offers little resistance. Phil stands there motionless; with his hand in hers, still staring at the empty space where he was carving before she'd interrupted him. She can feel his hand lightly attempting to move back towards the wall but the action seems passive, like a ball prevented from rolling down a hill, she senses that if she continues to hold his hand still, the drawing stops, but if she lets him go, it continues. She lets the hand go, and her theory is confirmed immediately. Phil continues drawing.

May grabs his hand again and pulls it back away from the wall, only this time she uncurls his hand from around the knife and places it on the ground. Again he offers only passive resistance. She then places her hands on his shoulders and spins him around to face her. She stares into his eyes. He stares past her (or maybe through her) at God only knows what.

"Phil" she yells again. She feels his body lightly twisting in the direction of the knife trying to pick it up and continue his work.

"Phil" with her left hand she grabs handful of his t-shirt to hold him in-place and she taps on his face with her right. She can hear her voice crack with emotion as she calls his name "Phil".

"Phil" she continues. His body continues to twist towards the knife and he begins to blink rapidly as she holds him in place.

"Holy Shit" Melinda screams. May doesn't normally curse, or raise her voice, but she maintains her carefully constructed demeanor because Melinda May is rarely surprised. Unfortunately she was caught unaware when Phil collapses without warning. His eyes close and his body becomes instant dead weight. Melinda gets behind him just in time to grab under his armpits before his head hits the ground. She quirks her eyes in annoyance and sighs with deep relief as she lowers Phil to the ground.

She lays him supine on the concrete floor and leans over his still form to check his vitals. She's relieved to find that his breathing and pulse are normal. From his position on the ground he looks like he could be sleeping.

May is reluctant to involve Simmons, because she doesn't want anyone thinking Coulson is crazy unless he actually is, but if she can't wake him in the next few minutes, then she really has no choice. _You're a specialist not a doctor_ she hears Phil's voice inside her head and she sighs because if Coulson's nerd quotes are rolling around in her head then she must really be tired.

She shakes him and rubs her knuckles on his sternum. After about two minutes she is ready to call Simmons but then his eyelids start to pull open slightly in response to her continued prodding and probing.

"Phil, open your eyes" she commands forcefully. The man complies if only slightly. His eyes roll around in his head as if medicated.

"May?" he questions groggily and she is flooded with relief. He looks like he is falling back into unconsciousness so she taps the side of his face.

"Hey?" she says "What day is it? Do you know where you are? You need to sit up" his eyes seem a little clearer as he processes her questions but he still looks like he is fighting a losing battle with sleep.

"It's still Thursday" he answers with an air of confusion "and we're at the Playground"

She pulls him to a sitting position by his t-shirt and he hunches over sprawled legs, his right elbow resting on his thigh as his right hand swipes at his eyes which continue to close against his will.

"God m' tired" his voice is low "never been so tired. Why am I on the floor?"

Phil feels like lead. The forceful need to close his eyes pulls at him like a 40 ton weight and he's never quite felt like this before. He tries to process the world around him but his eyelids keep directing him downward and backward. Melinda is telling him to stand, but he feels like he can barely sit.

"I'm not carrying your fat ass back to your quarters Phil" she insists "Get up" and Phil listens because when Melinda May is telling you to do something in that tone you just do it. He feels an arm slip under his armpits and around his back. He places an arm above hers and around her neck.

"I'm not fat" he responds as he is pushed and pulled upwards by his shaky legs and Melinda's strong arms. Once he's on his feet he sees the wall in his peripheral. He stops and turns them around to look at it directly and notices the symbols on the wall. _Had Garett drawn those?_ He pondered. He still feels like he is falling asleep and Melinda seems to notice because she doesn't let him go. He considers the wall with a sleepy, perplexed expression.

"I don't remember Garett drawing that much… did he?" he says with confusion and when he looks at Melinda for the answer, her eyes tell her all he needs to know. She can sense him piecing together the identity of the etchings' creator.

"No" he whispers "No I didn't?" he stares at her and the devastation in his eyes makes her increase her hold around his back and spin him toward the door.

"Let's go!" she again commands leaving no room for argument. As they walk she can feel him trying to stand on his own power but he continues to stumble into sleep and wake again. He doesn't ever ask for her to let go and she knows that he would if he thought he could walk on his own. He doesn't speak during the short trip to his quarters and when she lays him down on his bed there is still devastation in his eyes. He fights the weight in his eyes for another moment.

"I've lost it." He whispers.

"We don't know what's happened" she grabs his shoulder. "Well figure it out when you wake up."

He's asleep before she finishes her statement.


	2. Chapter 2

Melinda pulls a sheet over Coulson and takes a moment to freak out. She paces quietly (which is about as external a freak-out as Melinda May allows herself without a punching bag in close range). Her mind races with questions and possibilities. Then she forces herself to stop, physically and mentally. _You can only deal with what's in front of you_ she reminds herself.

She considers her closest friend. He breathes deeply and sleeps the sleep of the dead. She can only remember one other time when she'd seen him so dead to the world that a soft breeze wouldn't wake him. Then as now, she didn't like the circumstances.

With a sigh she searches for the extra pair of handcuffs she knows Phil keeps in a desk drawer or a bedside table. She finds them on the second try. Phil doesn't stir as she slides one metal bracelet around his wrist and secures the other to the bedpost. After moving all the potentially dangerous items out of his reach she leaves to complete her original mission. She locks the weapons locker and while she pads back to Phil's room she thinks _Frigging weapons locker_! _If I could just have ignored the damn weapons locker I wouldn't be in this position, _but Melinda can only lie to herself for so long; so she curses whatever God may-be that Phil might be losing his mind, and then she thanks the same God that it was her that found Phil subconsciously defacing bunker walls, and not Jemma or Skye …_or God help me what if Koenig had found him_ she imagines with horror.

When she returns to Phil's room he hasn't moved. She briefly considers sacrificing another night of sleep to watch over him but the idea seems ridiculous and unnecessary. She only considers it because she wants to avoid the awkward moment when Phil wakes up and finds the two of them handcuffed together but if there is a way to avoid another sleepless night, she has to take it. She has a feeling she'll be needing as much sleep as she can get in the coming days, and since leaving Phil unattended isn't an option, she un-cuffs his limp hand from the bedpost and pulls him to the left side of the bed before jumping in beside him and linking their two wrists together. She takes one final look around to ensure that there is nothing within his reach, she shoves a pillow behind her head with her free hand and settles in for what she hopes is a quiet night _well what's left of the night_ she grouses silently as her eyes drift shut.

When Phil and Melinda were younger (not all that young, but before Melinda removed herself from field work) Jasper Sitwell had given Phil the nickname "Snuggles". The moniker never quite caught on as Jasper hoped it would but he did his best to spread it.

Phil was a people person by nature, and no matter how much he honed that detached, bland, suited persona, he could never truly shed the social part of his personality. In his sleep, Phil had a tendency to latch onto any warm body within arm's reach. He didn't discriminate and if he was within a foot of any man or woman (or canine) there was a reasonable chance he'd reach out. This particular proclivity led to some awkward moments during overnight missions.

Sitwell always slept near Phil whenever there was an occasion for the group to share a bed (or a cave or whatever), because Sitwell was Phil's trainee and because Sitwell could be ordered to do so; but also because Sitwell didn't embarrass easy. He secretly enjoyed getting to give his mentor a little crap and at the end of the day Jasper was undyingly loyal to Phil,_ or so we all thought _mussed May. So Sitwell called Phil "Snuggles" and alerted anyone who would listen whenever Phil grabbed for a hand or an arm or attempted to wrap himself around the younger man like a boa-constrictor. And Phil let Jasper make jokes, because Jasper was rarely if ever disrespectful and the older man supposed that if he was going to force his trainee to bat away his wandering hands all night to spare the others, then he had to take his lumps in spite of his superior rank.

As Melinda wakes to the feel of Phil's hand wrapping it's self around hers she smiles as she fondly recalls the story behind the "Snuggles" designation. (She simultaneously tries to ignore the deep seated sense of betrayal that accompanies the mere mention of the nickname's creator.)

Phil's hand clasps tighter around Melinda's making the hand cuffs twist annoyingly into her wrists. She turns onto her right side to face him and notices that he is sucking in breath awkwardly. She props herself up on her elbow and observes as his eyeballs dart back and fourth behind tightly shut eyelids. His free hand grasps firmly around the sheets on his opposite side.

It's moments like these when she resents Phil and his uncanny ability to comfort, to sooth, to look softly on others, to hold hands with the suffering and kiss foreheads and somehow not lose anything in the process. If she were Phil Coulson she could help a man caught in a nightmare without fear of judgment, and if anyone said something she would shrug and walk away and somehow come away looking better for it, but she was not Phil Coulson and she had spent years constructing a façade that worked for her, and she wasn't sure she was ready to give it up for anyone...even Coulson.

In spite of herself, Melinda's hand closes more firmly around Phil's and she draws him closer because deep down she knows that Coulson has always seen through her façade, and if she can't comfort him now, then she will be forced to admit that she can't comfort anyone anymore.

She reaches across his body and untangles his free hand from the sheets. His free had releases the sheets and curls around hers instinctively his body turns towards her slightly and his grasp tightens to an uncomfortable level. Melinda whispers shushing noises into his ears as she rubs the back of his hands with the pads of her thumbs. He calms somewhat before his eyes open. His eyes squint in confusion as he stares at the ceiling. He moves his hands to rub his eyes and that's when he feels the resistance of the handcuffs tugging at his left hand. He turns to face Melinda and a flood of emotions pass over his face before he settles on the placid smile he is infamous for. She can tell he remembers. She can tell that he's scared.

"Hey" he says

"Hey" she returns with a stiff smile.

TBC


End file.
